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Unorganized thoughts:

I've heard a number of people compare Unleash Psyche to a Barbarian's Rage. I totally get that. I'm wondering if the Psychic might do better if they had something more akin to the Stances used by Fighters and Monks?

I'd suggest this replacing Amps for specific spells. Maybe they could give a benefit to all spells they cast. That could partially make up for a lack of spell slots. This would free up Focus Points to be used for actual Focus Spells. Tie mental rage to those instead, allowing for more castings of said focus spells if a fight goes on long enough.

Does this spark any ideas?

On Saturday I ran an adventure for the purpose of playtesting the Psychic and Thaumaturge. The other two characters were a dragon Summoner and a Rogue. The adventure in question was home-brewed. The party were PFS members exploring an Ancient Osiriani tomb.

There were four encounters.

Low Threat: 4 Elite Stone Golems

Lots of fun. The Rogue took out one of the golems in a single round. The Summoners dragon proved very defective as a combatant. The Thaumaturge was great in this fight, especially having two attacks of opportunity each round and being able to create a custom weakness. The Psychic suffered the normal problems of spellcaster in a fight with a golem. Telekinetic projectile wasn't as effective as desired, and he ended up using his pistol (because guns and gear just came out and why not have a Psychic with a pistol?), even though it didn't end up beating the golem's resistance 10 to physical damage.

Moderate Threat: 2 Nemhaiths

Again, not much of a problem for the Rogue or the Summoner. The Thaumaturge had invested in a Ghost Touch weapon rune, so it was basically a normal fight for him and went fine. The Psychic managed to do a good amount of force damage with a spell that I can't remember the name of. Again though, dealing with damage resistance was a problem for the Psychic.

Moderate Threat: 4 Hamatulas & 1 CR15 Quintessivore Bone Oracle

The Rogue and Thaumaturge stream rolled the quintessivore. It was just no match in melee against the combo of Trip (provided by the Rogue's dog companion), Attack of Opportunity from the Thaumaturge, and Opportune Backstab. It's just as well that no one's soul got eaten. I *am* friends with these people after all. The Summoner mostly stayed behind his dragon. The Psychic managed a few good hits with Telekinetic Projectile, including one hit that pushed a Hamatula back the length of the battlefield.

Severe Threat: 1 CR 17 Mummy Pharaoh & 1 CR 15 Cynosphinx (converted from 1e and scaled up)

This fight could have been much more devastating than it was, if the mummy had taken advantage of the PCs' paralysis to hurt them instead of trying to convince them he was a god and get them to bow to him voluntarily. Two of them still had to pay tribute because of an Overwhelming Presence spell, but the Thaumaturge and Psychic both got critical successes. Again, the Rogue and Summoner were effective - specifically against the sphinx. The Psychic was actually able to use Unleash Psyche during this encounter and used it to some effect. The Thaumaturge did great amounts of damage to the mummy by taking advantage of his weakness 17 to Fire. It was a tough fight, and the Thaumaturge got reduced to 0 hit points once. The dragon/Summoner nearly got there as well.

Takeaways:

The Thaumaturge performed really well, and the player was happy.

After the adventure, the Psychic's player revealed that he was having resource management issues as early as the golem encounter. The number of spell slots was not sufficient and the amped cantrips didn't make up for that. Unleash Psyche was lackluster. Despite being 15th level, he had very few class feats from the Psychic list. Most of them were from an archetype because player didn't like most of them. I think that's a scathing indictment.

Greetings!

I'm going to be running Malevolence for a group soon(ish), and am in the process of preparing it on Roll20. I have a question about the location of a particular magic item.

I don't actually have any mechanical solutions to offer. I'm not sure how useful another discussion of that is going to be. What I want to focus on is the other end: the effect of whatever changes get made.

First, the things that are already present:

- Deliver a spell via a weapon attack. I like the damage being combined and the success of the strike impacting the success of the spell.

- Be able to temporarily enchant my weapon. That's just a really cool ability.

- Parry and even redirect an incoming spell.

- Counteract a spell by making a weapon attack against the target it was cast on.

There are others, but those are the ones that really stand out. Now for the things I'd like to be able to do with this class, that I either can't or are way too limited.

- Cast buffing spells in/before combat without relying on potions or scrolls, and "without losing my highest level spell options."

- Solve mundane problems outside of combat using magic, " "

- Manipulate spells in more ways than just storing them. Maybe use that energy to perform a maneuver that my weapon can't usually be used for.

- Temporarily enchant my armor in the same way I do my weapons.

- Cast in a way that makes it harder for attacks of opportunity to hit.

Feel free to add any of your own.

I'm curious what spells players are preparing for their Magus and Summoner characters, and what your reasoning was behind those choices.

This past weekend, my group played through a short adventure, mostly focusing on combat encounters to test the Magus and Summoner. My character was a Magus. I wanted to share how that went and what I've been thinking since then.

The whole party was 5th level. The other characters who filled out the party were a fighter and a rogue. I made a few decisions during character creation that affected the way I played.

1. I only used cantrips for Spellstrike. I made sure to take cantrip expansion so that I could have the widest variety of energy damage types available, and that they'd always be available.

2. I reserved spell slots primarily for buff spells, with the exception of a heightened Shockwave (3rd). The rest consisted of Longstrider (2nd), Mirror Image (2nd), and Haste (3rd). I rationed them and cast based on what we were facing.

3. Between Fleet and Longstrider, I maximized my movement rate so that I'd need to spend fewer actions getting into position during a fight. I also raised Acrobatics and Athletics to expert, to maximize my ability to get into position.

4. Between Expert Athletics and a reach weapon with the trip and disarm traits, I figured I'd be able to debuff opponents and keep myself out of the range of attacks of opportunity.

Some of that even worked out the way I planned.

Out of six attempted spellstrikes, I landed five of them. The one that I wasn't able to get off was the first one I tried, because the spell attack roll failed. Being able to customize energy types to targets did allow me to exploit weaknesses that other characters couldn't. The only slotted spell that didn't have a noticeable effect was shockwave, but only because the target's turn was right after mine (successful save = flatfooted until the start of their next turn). Moving into position, never took more than two actions. Sadly, the only opponent we faced that had attacks of opportunity also had reach. I did manage at least one successful trip. Despite having Arcane Fists, and +1 Striking Handwraps, I never managed to make an unarmed second or third attack.

In a more prolonged game, I might have tried out making three mundane attacks in a round, or focusing on ranged use of cantrips. The Temporary Hit Points from Sustaining Steel were difficult to keep track of at first, but I think they did help. Also, keeping an oil of potency on hand for use on armor before combat seemed like a good idea. The bonus to AC and Saves didn't prove to be a tipping point on any attack or save, but easily could have. I considered it a very good investment. In fact, I thought about taking a monkey familiar with manual dexterity just so it could apply said oil during an unexpected combat. Don't judge me. :P

As for actual data, I (177 damage over 14 successful attacks, including one trip) was far behind the party's Fighter (266 damage over 19 successful attacks) and the Summoner's Eidolon (282 damage over 14 attacks) in total damage dealt over the span of four fights. If we treat the spell and melee attack as separate, I made about the same number of attacks as the Eidolon and had the same accuracy (~78%). The Fighter's accuracy was better, as you would expect (~86%). I don't have damage data for the Rogue (26 attacks, 13 hits, 50% accuracy). The difference between damage per attack for the Magus and Fighter was less than one point (if I don't include that trip, closer to 1.4 if I do include it). Of course that's if my math is correct. Overall, I think that's favorable. Being within 2 points of damage/attack on average is pretty close. The fighter made more attacks, because OF COURSE the Fighter made more attacks. The magus can also do things in and out of combat that the Fighter can't.

Altogether it was fun and it did feel much different from playing a regular martial or caster. I still have reservations about the class, but playing at a higher level may change that.